Today i bring to you a piece from a fellow book blogger Joan, who kindly agreed to do a guest post on my page. It’s something many bloggers can relate to. I know myself that i’m guilty of not commenting more and simply clicking like.. *Note to self.. must try harder to comment*
I hope you enjoy Joan’s post and recommend you check out her reviews. We may not read the same genres/books but i very much enjoy her reviews. Insightful and honest.. just like i aim my own reviews to be.
Firstly, I would like to say thank you to David for the very kind offer of guest posting in his blog. My name is Joan and I am a book blogger. I’ve been reviewing books for less than a year, but I’ve been a reader all my life. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you!
A few days ago, I noticed that people are worrying over comments and the lack thereof. I looked back on my own blog and realized that the number of views I got was highly disproportional to the comments that I received. I think this might be the case for mostly everyone, but the difference is too great that I got curious.
As someone who loves commenting and receiving comments in return, I believe that commenting should not be a ‘lost art’. Bloggers love talking to each other, but we don’t usually utilize this classic tool for communicating online.
Why is this so?
I ran a poll on Twitter to find out why bloggers don’t leave comments on the blogs they read or why they find it difficult to reply to their readers. Based on the survey, here are the results:
25% are too busy to reply immediately or just don’t have enough time to reply to posts.
8% would rather use Twitter to share their thoughts. Twitter is convenient and you immediately get a response back from the other person, given they are online.
50% have nothing to say. I admit I feel this way sometimes. I go read a post, nod in agreement, and hit that like button. I feel like that basically sums up what I thought of the topic.
17% specified other reasons. It may be because they are undergoing a personal struggle or were preoccupied with something so their thoughts are somewhere else.
Sometimes, these factors are out of our control. In this era of convenience and time efficiency, has commenting become a lost art? It’s not really our responsibility to leave a comment on every blog that we visit, but maybe we can also take a moment to remember its benefits.
Comments help connect the writer to their readers. This is basically what the commenting system is for, right? We might have minimal to say, but trust me when I say that I still want to hear it. Even if you think you are just parroting other people’s opinions, it’s important to add your voice into the mix. Once, I left a reply on a blogger’s post and it turned into a fascinating discussion from one topic to another. That was fun, and I found myself thinking so this is how it feels like to ignite a thoughtful conversation online.
Since I decided to participate in Nori’s Commenting Challenge, I’ve been working hard on discovering new blogs. If I comment on 1 blog a day, that’s still 365 comments within a year, which is not so bad. That comment could have made someone’s day brighter or gained you a new follower. I also try to make my comments specific and open-ended whenever I can, so that the talking doesn’t just stop with a single reply.
Furthermore, I allow an hour to blogging everyday. Sometimes, I write my own posts while other times I go online for the sole purpose of blog hopping (plus commenting). I always try to make sure I comment back on every reply I get or try to visit my readers’ blogs. This is relatively easy for me since my blog is small, so if yours is massive then I imagine this is a daunting task.
What about you? What are your thoughts about commenting? Do you think it’s necessary or would you prefer to speak to your readers using a different platform?
To find out more about Joan and Fiddler Blue check out the links below
Blog: http://fiddlerblue.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fiddler_blue
David's Book Blurg 